Jawbone Opens Up

Word broke today that Jawbone bought BodyMedia, combining two of the biggest players in the booming digital health market. Jawbone's fashionable UP wristbands are a deep contrast to BodyMedia's trackers, which tend to be a bit bulkier and track many more data points. The move quickly makes Jawbone a leader in the space. Even more interesting than the BodyMedia sale, which is estimated to be worth more than $100 million, is that Jawbone is making its UP platform available to third-party developers. This is something I think consumers have been craving.

The problem with current digital health tracking is that none of the services talk to each other. I bought a Fitbit Aria scale to track my weight, so I had to get a FitBit Ultra tracker, otherwise I wouldn't be able to see the results of both on the same website. I want to be able to connect my scale, fitness tracker, diet app, and cell phone to the same service, but the hardware players haven't been playing nice. Opening up the Jawbone UP platform is a good first step.

The new UP app for iOS works with a variety of popular health apps and devices, including IFTTT, LoseIt, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, Maxwell Health, Notch.me, RunKeeper, Sleepio, Wello, and Withings. MyFitnessPal is currently PCMag's Editors' Choice for fitness management and IFTTT is a powerful service that can connect almost any two apps. For example, with IFTTT you could set up every Foursqure gym check-in to register in Jawbone's UP automatically. There still isn't a way to link to FitBit or the Nike Fuelband, but that is where the market is heading.

By acquiring BodyMedia, Jawbone also ups the amount of data it will be tracking. The Jawbone UP is a nice fitness tracker to record physical activity and sleep, but BodyMedia takes data to a whole new level. Best known as the official tracker of The Biggest Loser, BodyMedia has been building fitness tracking devices for 14 years and has collected more than 500 trillion body sensor data points. BodyMedia also owns 87 patents in this space. (Jawbone itself has 230 patents, but a lot of those are in the audio space.)

The goal here is to have one personal dashboard that is fed by data from a variety of sensors and personal computing devices. A pedometer can track your movements, Strava will track your bike rides, Foursquare will provide the location layer, and Weight Watchers' calories counters will seamlessly record your food intake. Eventually, blood pressure and cholesterol levels taken at your annual check-up will provide a holistic view of your health.

Unfortunately, at least for this Android user, the UP platform will only be available on iOS at launch, although an Android port and a completely open, bi-directional API are in the works.

Dan Costa is the Editor-in-Chief of PCMag.com and the Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff-Davis. He oversees the editorial operations for PCMag.com, Geek.com, ExtremeTech.com as well as PCMag's network of blogs, including AppScout and SecurityWatch. Dan makes frequent appearances on local, national, and international news programs, including CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, and NBC where he shares his perspective on a variety of technology trends.
Dan began working at PC Magazine in 2005 as a senior editor, covering consumer electronics, blogging on Gearlog.com, and serving as...
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